From director Paul Verhoeven (The Fourth Man, Total Recall, Basic Instinct), before he directed the atrocious Showgirls, which was chock-a-block with sex and nudity, in his home country of the Netherlands he made this film with similar high content, but of course this is much better, and was featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. Basically Eric Vonk (Rutger Hauer) is a highly talented sculptor, and he has a habit for picking up random women from the streets and having sex with them at his studio, but it is clear that he is only doing this to try and get over the breakup from Olga Stapels (Monique Van De Ven), and through flashback we see him recall his relationship with her. Eric was trying to hitch a ride, and Olga picked him up as a hitchhiker, and immediately they connect sexually and spiritually, and after somewhat of a short time they start living together and marry, this relationship is strongly disapproved by Olga's mother (Tonny Huurdeman) because she does not like his sculpting bringing in only occasional commission. The couple still get married despite these opinions, and he is accepting by her family, but after having many adventures together she is starting to act strangely, and she is seen at a family party with a businessman flirting, so the couple have strong argument until he slaps her and she leaves him. Eric in anger trashes his studio, ruining anything that reminds him of Olga, and this is when the film comes out of flashback to present day, he still obsesses about his wife but they do occasionally see each other, each time with her acting more and more outrageously, often hanging around with other men, and the family are not allowing him to visit her until he will agree to end the marriage and divorce her. Eventually he does confirm the divorce, and she quickly marries an American businessman, but this relationship does not last that long as it fast goes wrong, and he returns to Holland, and she is once again becoming flamboyant with her dress sense, but she is losing logic. Eric meets her, they talk a little and she collapses and is taken to hospital, she is diagnosed with a brain tumour which means that she is to go into surgery, but unfortunately not all of the intervention could remove the fatal problem, so she will definitely die. All Eric can do for Olga is spend whatever time they have left together caring for her, and having refused for some time to eat he one day brings her some Turkish delight, this becomes the only thing she will eat as she worries her teeth will be broken by harder food, and in the end she does indeed tragically die. Also starring Wim Van Den Brink as Olga's father, Hans Boskamp as Winkelchef, Dolf De Vries as Paul and Manfred De Graaf as Henny. Hauer, before becoming well known for dark and villainous roles, proves a good choice as the man with an obsession for sex and his art, and Van De Ven is also suitable as the beautiful who shares a passionate connection on and off with him, the film does mostly consist of the voyeuristic nudity and sensual sex scenes, in many situations, including bizarre and shocking moments during, but unlike Showgirls they work as part of the love story and are very interesting to watch unfold, it adds up to a marvellously inventive erotic drama. It was nominated the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film. Very good!
Review of Turkish Delight
